Heat’s Nikola Jovic shows the kids can grow up so fast; soon he can even raise a toast

MIAMI – A month from now, Nikola Jovic will be able to raise a glass to publicly toast his breakthrough 2023-24 season with the Miami Heat.

That’s not to say that there already isn’t a sense of pride in going from a questioned 2022 first-round pick to a second-year starter. It’s just that . . . Jovic can’t legally imbibe in his breakthrough until he turns 21 on June 9.

For a team of veteran culture, where the team’s ensuing first-round pick, 2023 selection Jaime Jaquez Jr., already is three years older, Jovic broke his share of molds in the just completed season.

He earned the trust of coach Erik Spoelstra to start in the playoffs.

He got the Heat out of their cycle of small ball with a 6-foot-10 starter to play alongside center Bam Adebayo.

And on a team of controlled tempo, he became the bustout face of the frontcourt.

In an uneven overall season for the Heat, one that came to an abrupt end last week with a 4-1 elimination by the Boston Celtics in the first round of the playoffs, Jovic emerged as a success story.

As well as a story still unfolding.

“If you would have said that in the first-round series last year,” Spoelstra said, “right when our season ended, that Niko would be our starting power forward and doing the type of scheme things that he was doing in the series against Boston and that we’d have to rely on him in a certain way, you probably would have thought like, ‘No, that’s no happening nine months from now.’ But I think him experiencing all of that I think was really important.”

Now all the Heat want is more.

Which is fine, because all Jovic wants is more.

“It’s not enough,” Jovic said of his growth from year one to year two. “I think I got to be a lot better for this team. Our fans too – they deserve to see me be better. And I just see how hard I need to work to be on the level I need to be in the playoffs. That’s all I’m going to focus on.”

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It is an approach rubber stamped by his coach, with both to be at the Paris Olympics, Spoelstra as an assistant coach to Steve Kerr with Team USA, Jovic representing Serbia.

“Niko got a full education on how important every single detail, every single possession, all of those things, how they really matter in the playoffs,” Spoelstra said. “And he’ll be motivated to have a really important, productive offseason. He has to really get after it again.

“He made tremendous progress last offseason, the six weeks leading up into summer league and then the World Cup. But he’ll need another summer like that. The Olympics will help, but I think getting a little bit of rest, getting healthy, getting away from it, but then building his body back up and working on his player development and really preparing for the summer will be important, as well.”

While the Celtics series did not turn out how the Heat or Jovic wanted, the No. 27 pick in 2022 did make his mark. In The Heat’s Game 2 victory against the Celtics, when he closed with 11 points, nine rebounds, six assists, three steals and one block, he became the second youngest player (20 years, 320 days) to reach those totals in a playoff game, behind only Magic Johnson, who did so twice in 1980, at 20 years, 271 days, and then at 20 years, 276 days.

For Spoelstra, whose frustrations can become visibly evident during the course of games, it proved to be a balancing act of fast tracking youth while also appreciating the foibles of youth.

“He’s 20,” Spoelstra said, “so I always do need to remind myself of that. I hold him to an extremely high standard, because our standards are not going to change. Our expectations are always going to be championship-level expectations. Yes, I’m expecting him to rise to that.

“Is he there now? No. Am I going to stop driving him and pushing him? No. But I’ve been very encouraged by the progress that he’s made, in particular in the last 12 months. He didn’t play at all in last year’s playoff run. So really what you’re talking about is June all the way ’til now. The type of progress he’s made has been pretty significant.”

Perhaps the greatest sign of progress is that when Jovic’s name came up in trade rumors last summer, including in a potential play for Damian Lillard, Jovic was viewed as somewhat of a throw-in. Now, with the playoff exposure, NBA scouts view him as a legitimate trade chip.

No, it did not end the way the Heat wanted it, nor the way Jovic wanted it. But this time it ended with Jovic on the court, attempting to maximize the opportunity, so there can be another opportunity.

“I’ve just seen how hard I need to work, the level of the playoffs,” he said. “You just got to keep moving. It’s something that should motivate us. It’s something that should motivate me, for sure.”